本文转录自gamasutra http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/168303/defenders_quest_by_the_numbers.php?page=1 Defender’s Quest: By the Numbers "防御者的任务"销售数字的背後 by Lars Doucet [Business, Social/Online] Today I’d like to talk a little bit about the marketing strategy and sales results for Level Up Labs’ latest game, Defender’s Quest: Valley of the Forgotten. Though our game was only released this January, we have already received significant critical acclaim and brisk sales beyond our wildest expectations, and wish to offer any information from our experience which might help other independent game developers succeed. 今天我要说明有关於我们团队Level Up Labs最新作品Defender’s Quest: Valley of the Forgotten的市场策略与销售结果。虽然我们的游戏今年一月才刚释出，我们就已受 到显着的喝采，持续成长的销售也超过我们最好的预期。因此我希望能提供我们的经验给 其他的独立制作者参考。 But before we get started, let me introduce myself — my name’s Lars Doucet, and I’ve spent the last six years as a freelance game developer and writer. I ’ve worked on serious games for the MacArthur Foundation, Texas A&M, Rice, and Wake Forest Universities, as well as a (so-far unreleased) Facebook game for a major publisher. 在开始之前，让我先自我介绍我叫做Lars Doucet，最近六年自诩一位独立游戏开发者与 作家的身份。我曾作过MacArthur Foundation，Texas A&M，Rice，and Wake Forest Universities的教育游戏，以及一个才刚释出的Facebook游戏。 My game design articles also appear frequently among Gamasutra’s expert blogs. Our current team at Level Up Labs includes Anthony Pecorella, our lead designer and an employee of Kongregate, James Cavin, our writer and character artist, and Kevin Penkin, our musician. 我的游戏设计文章也发表在Gamasutra上。目前我在Level Up Labs的团队中还包含主企划 Anthony Pecorella，Kongregate的一个成员James Cavin，他担任剧本与角色设定，以及 我们的音乐Kevin Penkin。 Defender’s Quest is a departure from my previous work making educational games like Super Energy Apocalypse and CellCraft. For this game, our team has done its best to combine the storytelling, melodrama, party-building, and metagame elements of a tactical JRPG with a tower defense-style battle system. Defender’s Quest是从我之前一个教育游戏像Super Energy Apocalypse与CellCraft脱 离出来的。这个游戏整合很多叙事手法，音乐剧，团队建立，以及一个日式RPG的塔防战 斗系统的一些元素。 However, instead of ubiquitous "towers," players summon to battle individual characters from their party, each with their own personalized names, stats, equipment, and skill trees. Like a traditional RPG, characters level up between battles and gain strength. The player can also specialize each party member’s skills to fill different strategic niches. 除了盖塔之外，玩家从他的团队中招换有特定属性，装备，技能的角色。就像传统RPG的 夥伴一样，角色会成长，并专精技能。让玩家可以依此拟定特殊的防御策略。 Plan A We imagined a short, three to six month project, but after a few months, it became clear our ambitions for the project would take a lot longer. This was a big problem, due to the economy behind Flash games. Most revenue from Flash games comes from a primary sponsorship deal, where a sponsor (usually a games portal) pays to have their logo and a link to their site in all versions of the game, stripping all other outgoing links, in order to capture all the game ’s traffic and attention for the sponsor’s benefit. Essentially, a sponsorship is an offer to buy your game’s audience. 我们预期一个短期三到六个月的开发，但是我们的野心明显地超过於此。但导致预算不足 的大问题。这类型游戏的经济模型：金主通常是一个入口网站，金主提供金援换得有Logo 的游戏并制造唯一的通路。 As the game spreads across the internet, it drives traffic to the sponsor — so the better the game, the higher the traffic, and the more the sponsor will pay. No matter how good the game, however, every sponsor’s payment has an upper limit. Practically, this means the longer you work, the less you earn per hour spent. Extra cash can be earned from ads, contests, secondary sponsorships, and microtransactions, but even with all these extras, the pay for this labor intensive work usually amounts to peanuts. 相反地游戏制造热潮来回馈入口网站。游戏的价值来自於他可以创造多少人流，而不是游 戏好坏，但总有个上限。工作室花的时间越长，利润就越少。当然还是有其他获利来源， 如广告，比赛，其他金主，或是微创投，但都是杯水车薪。 It’s worth noting that microtransactions work best in multiplayer games, or Facebook games, but according to Anthony’s experience at Kongregate, they generally do poorly on single-player games on Flash portals. 值得一提的是微创投在多人连线游戏，或Facebook游戏表现的很好。但是单人游戏或 Flash游戏就很差。 Andy Moore’s famous SteamBirds: By the Numbers article and others like it reveal that top-quality games can expect a sponsorship of around $25,000, with a theoretical (albeit virtually unattainable) maximum somewhere around $50,000 if the game is literally the best Flash game ever, AND you’re willing to accept draconian terms. And even if a team could expect these amounts, they would still be forced to cut corners to keep development time as short as possible. Andy Moore有名的文章SteamBirds: By the Numbers说明了高品质的游戏可以得到一个 25000美金的赞助(折合台币74万)，若是名列前矛的游戏可以再提升到50000美金(折合台 币148万)。即便是这样的收入，团队都必须缩衣节食，想办法减少开发时间。 This was our original plan — create a high-quality game worthy of a top sponsorship in a short enough amount of time to make the effort worth it. But after sinking countless hours into the project, our only shot at this strategy was to slash features. Even then, we’d still have to be the best Flash game ever to nab a large enough sponsorship to provide a decent hourly wage for all four team members. 我们开始的计画是在一个很短时间内做出一个高品质的游戏并获得最高且值得的金援。但 经过无法计算的工时之後，我们唯一作到的只有特效相关的特色。即使如此我们仍期待做 出最好的Flash游戏，得到足够团队存活的最好金援。 Plan B Instead of hoping to make minimum wage for our efforts, Anthony and I doubled down on Defender’s Quest. We decided to upgrade from a free Flash game to a full commercial release. This was risky — commercial games are obviously judged by a higher standard than free games. Furthermore, Flash has the stigma of an "amateur" platform. Among the larger independent game development scene, there is also the sentiment that success is difficult or impossible without the aid of gatekeepers like Steam or the Humble Indie Bundle. 不只希望能得到那些微薄的报酬，我与Anthony决定更进一步，扩大游戏的规模，从一个 Flash游戏变为完整的获利版本。这步很冒险，商业游戏通常比起免费游戏有更高的标准 ，而且Flash被视为是业余在用的工具。如果不依赖Steam或Humble等平台的话，在商业游 戏的这块领域独立制作的发布将更加严峻。 After much toil and sweat, we released the game on January 19th, 2012. This was a full 20 months after we started, more than three times longer than our original worst-case estimate. We spent the extra time polishing the game’s story and battle mechanics, features particularly scrutinized by RPG fans. 在一切的甘苦之後，我们在2012年1月19日释出了游戏。最後开发的时程总共20个月，三 倍长於我们原先的计画。我们花了额外时间在琢磨故事，战斗的机制，特别是那些RPG玩 家的检视及特色修改。 We’ll go into greater detail about our marketing strategy later in the article, but the basic approach was to sell the game on www.defendersquest.com, post a free demo, and then upload the demo to all the free Flash game portals, driving traffic back to our site. 我们接下来会详细说明我们市场策略，基本上是在www.defendersquest.com上发售我们的 游戏，将一个免费的展示版本丢到各大Flash入口网站上，并且统计人流。 The initial numbers have rolled in, and now I’m here to report on the results. 数据已经开始汇整，也就是我将说明的内容。 Results Let’s start with sales numbers. We went on sale January 19th. As of this writing, we’ve been on sale for about two and a half months. All dollar values are in USD. 从销售数字开始，统计自1月19日开卖到截稿，总共两个半月，金额都是以美金统计。 获利 销售量 毛利 　　　　　　　　70716 13846 Defendersquest.com 　52900 9973 FastSpring 抽走8% 　-4232 Kongregate.com 　　　17816 3873 Kongregate抽走30% 　-5345 小计 　　　　　　　　61139 支出 　　　　　　　　14399 税前盈余 　　　　　　46741 *This does NOT represent a profit of 46.7K. Altogether, we put in several thousand hours of labor that still needs compensating. 46741并不代表获利，这边没有计算我们花费的工时。 We sold the game on www.defendersquest.com by partnering with FastSpring, a popular online payment provider, which takes 8 percent of our gross revenues. At first, everyone who played the demo on any Flash portal was directed to our website to buy the full game. 我们透过线上付费公司FastSpring的协助，在我们网站www.defendersquest.com上贩售游 戏。他们抽成是8%。每个玩展示版的玩家都会被导到完整版本的网站。 On February 7th, we started letting players on the portal Kongregate buy the full game with "kreds," the site’s virtual currency. Even though Kongregate takes 30 percent of kred revenue, we decided to try it because the system was easier for players, which would hopefully lead to more overall sales. 2月7日开始在Kongregate透过虚拟货币kreds贩售游戏，Kongregate抽走30%。这个付费方 式对玩家而言更加简单。 We started with the special introductory price of $6.99 on our site, and 50 "kreds" (about $5) on Kongregate. 我们的定价是6.99美金，或是50个kreds币(约5美金)。 Why two different prices? 为什麽要定两种价钱？ 1. The Kongregate version is online-only, and has compressed graphics/audio. The download version has a few extra features, can be played anywhere, and has higher-quality assets. Kongregate版本是只能上网，影音受到压缩。而下载版有一些额外特色，可以不需要连线 ，图像的品质较高。 2. 50 kreds is a better impulse purchase price than 70, since the smallest amount of kreds players can buy is 50. 50个kreds币是一个技巧性的定价，比起70玩家更会容易接受。玩家能买的最小单位就是 50个kreds币。 Though the game is a complete, finished experience, we plan to add more content later in an upcoming Gold edition release. With the bonus material included, the final price for Gold edition will be $9.99. Everyone who has already bought the game will receive free upgrades for the additional content. 虽然游戏已经很完整，我们想要增加更多额外的内容，最後的黄金版会定价在9.99美金。 已经购买的玩家可以获得免费升级取得这些新内容。 Next, let’s look at a chart of our sales over time: 接下来让我们看一下随着时间的销售数字： Blue represents gross revenue from our own site, and red is gross revenue from kreds purchases. I’ve also marked various points on the graph with the following press and other events: 蓝色的曲线表示从我们网站得到的毛利，红色的曲线表示从kreds币购买。我把变化点的 数字都标了出来。 Source Event or Article Date 新闻 Destructoid Tower Defense meets RPG in ambitious Defender’s Quest 1/20 新闻 Joystiq The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Defender’s Quest 1/21 新闻 Jay Is Games Defender’s Quest 1/22 新闻 Rock, Paper, Shotgun Hours Of Towers: Defender’s Quest 1/23 发售 Event Launches on Kongregate 1/27 新闻 Destructoid Review: Defender’s Quest: Valley of the Forgotten 1/28 发售 Event Launches on Newgrounds 1/30 进入首页 Event Front page of Kongregate and Newgrounds 1/31 下架修改 Event Newgrounds goes down for redesign 2/6 开始收Kreds币 Event Enabled kreds on Kongregate 2/7 进入排行榜 Event Featured Game on Kongregate 2/8 新闻 Rock, Paper, Shotgun Second Wave: Defender’s Quest Free Gold Update 3/22 Mentions in the gaming press (Rock, Paper, Shotgun, in particular) correlate to single-day sales spikes. The largest spikes, however, as well as sustained sales over time, correlate with launching on the major Flash game portals (particularly Kongregate and Newgrounds). So the question is, which made a bigger difference: Flash portals or good press? For further analysis, we turned to our coupon data. 随着一些新闻的发布会有助小幅提昇销售，随着主要的入口开卖会有大幅的且持续的销售 数字。我们的疑问在於入口还是媒体比较有帮助？所以我们展开了折扣券的计画。 We made several different coupon codes available, as one of our many metrics for tracking sales and virality. We gave people who had signed up for our newsletter prior to release a special coupon for $2 off. We gave reviewers coupon codes named after their sites, which were good for $1 off. Our first batch of coupons was good through the end of January, but we later added some that were good through February 14th, specifically the Kongregate and Newgrounds coupons. 我们制作了不同的折扣券来追踪销售变化。订阅新闻有2元折扣，透过不同网站的评论家 散布1元折扣，第一批折扣券是在一月底开始。二月中再追加，尤其是加在Kongregate与 Newgrounds。 Here’s a chart of sales by coupon: 从折扣券得到的比例如下： You’ll also see some other coupons on the chart. I gave the coupon code "ZEBOYD" to fellow indie RPG developer Robert Boyd, who sent it out to his followers over Twitter and posted it on various forums around the internet. The "MONA" code was posted by our lawyer, Mona Ibrahim, and I posted another in my previous Gamasutra blog post about our launch.) The "SPECIAL" code was the $2 coupon from our newsletter. 标定为ZEBOYD的折扣券是由独立制作人Robert Boyd发出，他协助在推特跟其他网站发布 游戏的消息。 标定为MONA的折扣券是由我们的律师Mona Ibrahim发出。 标定为SPECIAL的折扣券是两元的折扣从订阅新闻而来。 When we released on Newgrounds and Kongregate, we were not sure if a demo with an up-sell would anger players, since those sites are free-to-play portals. Anticipating the worst reaction, we gave players on each site a $2 off coupon towards the game. After about a week on Kongregate, we replaced the link to our store with a link to buy the game for 50 kreds. 发布在Newgrounds与Kongregate前，我们并不知道这样的展示版本是否会触怒玩家。因为 那些入口网站都是免费游戏。收到那些糟糕的评论反应後，我们给予2元的折扣。发布在 入口网站两个礼拜後，我们把连结从我们的网站改为kreds币的下载方式。 Coupon codes correlate fairly strongly to sales sources, but they’re not exact. For instance, many people from a referring site will not use the provided coupon. Coupons have a tendency to leak throughout the internet, so obviously people outside the original target group end up using them. Also, if the coupons differ in value, word eventually gets out and people start using the higher-value coupon more. In the above example, the newsletter coupon (SPECIAL), was worth $2 off and only advertised in our newsletter. Many newsletter subscribers bought the game at full price anyway, and a lot of people who used this coupon were not on the newsletter. 折扣券与销售来源有关连，但是并非绝对。比如说很多人从一个网站连过来，但是并不使 用折扣券。折扣券会打破网路社群的隔阂。因此显然原本客群之外的人就会使用折扣券。 如果折扣券有价值上的不同，消费者当然会使用价值高的。订阅新闻的折扣券极少被真正 订阅的人使用。 Finally, all the coupons eventually expired, so sales from these sources after the expiration dates aren’t reflected in this chart. 最後，所有的折扣券最终都会过期，所以过期之後的销售数字并没有反应在折扣券的图上 。 But even with these caveats, I think it is fair to say that these sites were among our highest sources of revenue so far: 即使如此，我们从这些网站依然可以证实有获利： 1. Kongregate.com 2. Newgrounds.com 3. Rockpapershotgun.com 4. Joystiq.com 5. Reddit.com Based on coupon redemptions alone, the two flash portals, Kongregate and Newgrounds, represent over 75 percent of sales. 基於折扣券的图表，我们从Flash入口Kongregate与Newgrounds取得百分之七十五的销售 。 Given that this chart only represents sales made with a coupon from our FastSpring store, and leaves out kreds sales altogether, the real number for Kongregate is surely signficantly higher. 组合折扣券的图表与从FastSpring付费机制综合的结果，Kongregate的销售数字确实贡献 不少。 For now, we are only selling on our site with FastSpring and on Kongregate through kreds. We plan to expand onto other portals soon (Desura/Impulse/etc.), and of course, if Steam or the Humble Indie Bundle come calling, we’ll topple off our seats. 目前我们透过FastSpring在我们的网站上销售，在Kongregate则透过kreds币。我们计画 开拓其他入口的销售。也准备好到Steam或Humble平台发布。 But here are some things we did to increase sales. 我们为了提高销售数字还做了以下的事情。 Website 关於网页 I don’t know that much about web development, so I whipped up something very simple from an old css template. It’s just static HTML with flat colors, images, text, links, and embedded videos. 我对网页的制作并不熟稔，所以我只是很简单的使用老式的css样板，静态的html加上颜 色图片文字连结跟影片。 The website was designed to achieve two things as quickly as possible: 我们的网页设计有两个目的 1. Give the visitor everything they need to make a decision 给予浏览者作决定所需要的资讯。 2. Make it very easy to buy the game 让他们买游戏尽量简单。 The first thing you see when you go to www.defendersquest.com is this: 前者去看我们的网站就知道。 We do have a really nice quote from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, with a link to the review they did for us, but we didn’t launch with it — Adam Smith didn’t get his review copy until after launch, so his article came out a week later. Prior to this, we used a positive quote from Robert Boyd of ZeBoyd games. 在Rock, Paper, Shotgun我们确实有一些好的评论文章，但是事实上这篇评论并不在我们 销售计画中，甚至比我们发布游戏还晚了一周才出现。在此之前我们引述了Robert Boyd 在网站ZeBoyd games的评论文章。 Right below the heading is our launch trailer. We put this together using free screen-recording tools and iMovie. Captioning the video is our elevator pitch, and our technical selling points — "cross platform and DRM Free." Finally, we have our BUY/TRY buttons, which are on every page of the website. 发售的影片我们用了免费的萤幕录制软体与iMovie来作。影片後的标题着重在快速展示我 们的卖点：跨平台及跨区，我们还做了购买与试玩的按钮，每页都有。 We have the usual information pages: about, support, faq, etc. But the two most important links are FAQ and demo, so I made those stand out in the navigation bar. 也有一些常见的资讯页面：关於我，技术支援，问与答等等。最常点击的是问与答跟展示 游玩。所以我把这两个选项特写出来。 I’ve already written about our free demo strategy, but I’ll summarize here. We have a free, lengthy, web-based demo that visitors can play without downloading or installing anything. We also have downloadable demos for each platform, through direct link and BitTorrent. 先前已经说明过我们的展示版本，在这边作个总结。我们有个免费，长度限制，网页版的 展示。浏览者可以不用下载安装就可以游玩。当然展示版也可以下载游玩。透过直接下载 或BitTorrent。 When the player finishes or exits, the demo directs them to an up-sell page that links to the store and tells them how to export their save file to the full version. We hoped the demo would answer most of the player’s questions. Those wanting a richer experience with uncompressed assets and fullscreen support can install the downloadable demos, which also demonstrate whether the full game will run on their system. If the demo works, the full version should work too. 当玩家结束展示时，会有一个连结导引他们到线上商店并且告诉他们存档如何汇出到完整 版。 下载的展示版本可以有高品质的素材，全萤幕选项。也可证明完整版也可以在他们机器上 安装。 We also considered the fact that some visitors might be parents, so we included a page for them. Standard ESRB ratings aren’t very helpful, and as low-budget independent developers, they weren’t really an option for us. So to address the ratings issue, this button accompanies every BUY/TRY pairing: 我们也考虑了某些浏览者可能是父母的身份。比起ESRB分级的不足，而且还需要额外预算 ，我们制作了一个页面来说明游戏的内容安全。每个购买的按钮旁都摆着适合儿童游玩页 面的按钮。 I have observed several e-mails and forum postings from parents specifically mentioning this page as a reason for buying the game. 有几封电子邮件和论坛提到父母因为这样的作法而选择购买。 Next, I’ll talk about our conventional marketing strategy. 接下来要说明我们一般的市场策略 Marketing First, we created a press release. You can find the full text on our media page as part of our press kit, but I’ll share a snippet here: 首先我们创造主动式媒体发布，media页面有一个媒体工具可供下载。 简单来说里面包含主旨，影片连结，媒体页面连结，展示页面连结。 Level Up Labs is proud to announce their new Tower Defense / RPG hybrid Defender’s Quest for Mac, Windows, and Linux! Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFkdCv7daTs Media presskit: http://www.defendersquest.com/media.html Playable demo: http://www.defendersquest.com/play_demo.html The kit then goes on to give a brief game description, list of features, quotes from reviewers, links to reviews, along with additional pertinent information. However I felt the most important thing was the first five lines. I know reviewers are busy and appreciate us getting right to the point. In the first line, we give our company name and elevator pitch, and mention that the game is cross-platform. 里面还有游戏的说明，特色清单，其他评论者的评价，连结，其中有些中立的资讯。 但我觉得最重要的就是开始的主旨：有公司名称，与提醒产品卖点：跨平台且跨区。这让 评论者可以减少很多工作。 This is followed by our "three magic links." These links contain absolutely everything a reviewer needs, even if that was the whole press release. The first is a video, as it’s easy to follow that link, sit back, and watch. If that catches their interest, they’ll want to know more about the game and perhaps give it a spin. The playable demo should give them hands-on experience instantly while the media press kit gives them all the material they need for an article. Below is all we included in our press kit: 跟着主旨的就是三个重要魔法连结。评论者最需要的资讯都能从这里拿到。他们只需要点 开连结，坐着看就行。假如真的有兴趣，当然他们就会想知道游戏的部份，甚至直接试玩 。在媒体工具中有着大量他们写文章会用到的素材： The fact sheet contains the game’s basic info — price, technical settings, features, etc, and is included in three different formats to make it easy for the reviewer. "Box_art" contains, well, box art — which makes for pretty pictures to accompany an article. "Icons_and_thumbnails" includes pictures of the game in all shapes, sizes, and image formats — these are mostly for Flash portals that want to host the demo, but can also be used for a reviewer, for example, to accompany a short news post link where space is limited. "Press_release" and "screenshots" are pretty self-explanatory. 基本游戏资讯，价格，规格，特色。而且还包含三种排版。 游戏的图示，各种大小跟图档格式。 其他评论者的评论跟游戏截图，更是不言自喻。 We created a dedicated media page that has all this information, as well as links to all the press we’ve received. There’s a link to the press kit in big, obvious letters, and anchor links to the rest of the page’s content to minimize scrolling. 网页上的媒体页面就是包含这些资讯，媒体工具更是写的又大又清楚。 We’ve been updating both the press kit and this page after launch to add new quotes and reviews as they come in. We also tried a few things to announce the game prior to launch, which I’ll touch briefly on now. 这个页面会持续随着评论与新闻的增加而更新。 在游戏发售前我们甚至试着宣传我们的游戏。 Many developers use Games Press, a clearinghouse for video game press releases, to contact the press. We first used it to announce our public demo a few months prior to launch. Andrew Smee of Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote a lovely preview of our game, and told me his editor probably discovered our game on Games Press. Using Games Press again after launch had less success — it seems to have resulted in many mostly blank, auto-generated profiles for the game on sites like GameFAQs and Metacritic, but no actual reviews. 很多开发者使用Games Press，一个影片发布的网站来与媒体沟通。一开始我们透过它来 发布展示版本。Rock, Paper, Shotgun网站的Andrew Smee写了我们游戏的评论。他说他 们编辑就是从这网站知道我们游戏的。但是发布後在透过此网站就没有什麽进展。有些自 动产生的连结，但是没有真正的评论文章。 Prior to release, we also sent emails to Joystiq and Jay Is Games. Joystiq accepted our query and ran an article just after the game’s launch, and Jay Is Games did the same, both correlating to sales spikes (see chart, above), 发布前，我们寄送了电子邮件给Joystiq与Jay Is Games。如前面折扣券的地方所说，他 们都帮我们写了评论。 Social Networking I must confess a total lack of experience with social networking. Here’s a few things we tried. 我必须真正的忏悔，我真的没有经营社群网路的经验。我们试了以下的事情。 We put up Facebook and Google+ pages for our game which link to our site, and we put "like", "+1〃 and "Reddit" buttons on our front and demo pages. The most attention we seem to have gotten is just from my friends, family, and followers by directly talking about the game and posting links to reviews on my own personal Facebook, Google+, and Twitter accounts. 我们建了facebook与google+的页面，可以导引到我们网站。 我们网站也建了对应的like +1 reddit按钮。大部分都是我们亲朋好友来帮助我们透过 Facebook， Google+，Twitter分享出去。 I’ve had the most success with Twitter, perhaps because it’s so simple. You tweet stuff and if people care, they follow you, etc. That’s pretty much it. It’s also a great way to connect with people that might otherwise be difficult to meet. Twitter最成功，也许因为他最简单，假如网民有兴趣，就会推上去，聚集起来。连结不 能见面人群的好工具。 We got a lot of attention from Reddit threads (particularly ones sharing our coupon codes). I posted a $1-off REDDIT coupon when I saw the activity, which generated a decent chunk of sales (see chart, above). I also started an "Ask Me Anything" thread, which generated a lot of interest. 我们从Raddit上吸引了很多目光，特别是分享我们的折扣券。从这里得到很多销售数字。 我也开启了随便你问的讨论串，吸引众人的兴趣。 Surprisingly, most of the attention our game has gotten through social networking has come from people sharing an blog I wrote, "Piracy and the Four Currencies." As soon as I saw this, I added prominent links to Defender’s Quest in the article. 令人惊讶的是从社群网路来的注意力很多是从网民分享我写的部落格文章"盗版与四种货 币"。当我发现这个现象，我马上在文章中加上游戏的连结。 Free-to-Play Flash Portals 免费Flash游戏的入口 Front page of Kongregate! W00t! Although most of our players never notice, Defender’s Quest is a Flash game. We compiled it with Adobe AIR, which let us employ some tricks to get the standard "desktop quality" game features, like fullscreen resolution switching, to work. We also used Flixel, which gave us great performance (for a Flash game) by circumventing Flash’s normal, unoptimized, display logic. Using Flash made it easy to develop a browser demo, which we could distribute through flash portals. 虽然玩家通常没有注意到我们的游戏是Flash做的。我们透过Adobe AIR来编译它，让我们 使用一些可以呈现桌面品质的小技巧。像是全萤幕的解析度切换。我们也使用Flixel这个 函式库来提昇效能。使用Flash让我们也很容易在这类Flash入口网站发布。 As I mentioned in my previous article, rather than paying to host the demo on our own servers, we uploaded it to Mochi Media, turned off advertisements, and embedded it on our site. Then, we enabled distribution, which means that Mochi would send the demo to lots of flash portals across the internet. 如同我先前的文章描述的，我们把展示版本上传到Mochi Media，关闭广告，然後嵌入到 我们网站。然後开启散布功能，Mochi就能协助我们把游戏透过网路到Flash入口网站。 After seeing a truly astonishing number of visitors to our site from www.minijuegos.com of all places, we decided to go after the big boys — Newgrounds, Kongregate, and Armor Games. We launched on Newgrounds and Kongregate, but Armor Games is invitation-only and we weren’t able to reach an agreement with them. 当看到从www.minijuegos.com连过来数目惊人的浏览者，我们决定继续发布在Newgrounds ，Kongregate与Armor Games。不过由於Armor Games的游戏是由该网站所主动邀请，所以 我们一直未能通过该网站的审核。 Our plan was to create a special version of the browser demo for each major portal, implement each one’s achievement APIs, and create a unique demo landing page for each offering a $2-off coupon. Since I had gotten complaints that our store’s coupon field was hard to find, I made the "buy" button on each landing page pre-apply the coupon to the order. These coupons were worth more than our usual $1 off, but because we were afraid of "demo backlash" we figured the magic $5 impulse-buy price couldn’t hurt. 我们的计画就是在不同的入口放上特制的版本，制作那些网站的成就系统。对那些会产生 折扣券的版本创造特制的页面。有人抱怨折扣券的栏位很难找到，我们让产生折扣券的购 买按钮会预先折扣券套用到栏位上。（译按：最後一句我不会翻Orz） We started with Kongregate and immediately had our worst fears confirmed. The game’s page was quickly flooded with flames and one star reviews. Our score was around 3.4 and dropping steadily, which means our work would soon be consigned to video game oblivion. Many players complained they had been tricked, and that demos were unwelcome on free game sites. Kongregate一开始就证实我们的忧虑，游戏被潮水般的一颗星恶评淹没。总分大致落在 3.4而且持续下降。意思是我们很快就会成为被玩家遗忘的那一群。大部分玩家认为他们 被愚弄，而且这样的展示版本在免费游戏网站不受欢迎。 We were also accused of being "greedy," "evil," and — my favorite — "illegal." Against my better judgment, I logged into my personal account and argued back, but my comments were swiftly down-rated by angry players, and my grumpy words (mercifully) disappeared in minutes. 我们也被指控邪恶又贪心，我最喜欢的形容词是"犯法的"。我尝试回应辩护，但是很快就 被谩骂所挤出版面。 Anthony acted much more rationally than I did. He jumped onto our developer account and instantly started damage control. He changed the name of the entry from "Defender’s Quest Prelude" to "Defender’s Quest (lengthy!) DEMO". He updated the description fields to say "THIS IS A DEMO!" right at the top, rather than tucked away after the game’s feature list. Anthony比较理性的多，并很快展开灾後控制，他把展示版名称改为Defender’s Quest( 有限长度)，描述也把展示的说明从最尾端拉到第一行。 If people aren’t expecting this, it makes them very angry! 如果玩家一点也不在意的话，这灾後控管的行为可能使得玩家更生气。 He started responded courteously to each negative comment and within a day our review score had started turning around. Fans started buying the game, and a lot of them went to bat for us in the comments. After a few days we cracked the four star barrier, and were featured on the front page. Anthony持续亲切地回应那些负面评论，然後一天之内分数就开始回升，玩家开始购买， 很多鼓励的回应在论坛上出现，几天之後我们就突破四科星的屏障，荣登网站首页。 We’re still getting the occasional one star hate comments (who doesn’t?) lambasting us for being a demo, but the score climbed steadily. All of the metrics suggest Kongregate is overwhelmingly responsible for the majority of our total sales. 当然我们仍偶尔收到一颗星的评价。咒骂这只是个demo。但是分数持续攀升。这现象导致 Kongregate全力支持我们的销售。 After things settled down, we got many comments like, "Glad you changed the description. I don’t mind demos, I just wanna know what I’m getting up front." as well as, "I never buy based on a demo, but I bought this." So although our demo will never get a top rating, changing the context to manage expectations seems to have helped the perception. 我们收到很多玩家评论：我并不讨厌demo但是我要在玩之前知道这件事。而且我因为这个 demo版本买了你们的产品。诚实的说明确实是有用的。 A vocal minority will likely continue to down-rate us, but that comes with the territory. 嫌货人也是买货人。 We later launched on Newgrounds, using the experience from Kong to guide us. We made it absolutely clear in the title and description that the game was a demo, and included links to the RPS and Destructoid reviews of the game. Newgrounds received a similar $2-off coupon, just like Kongregate. 我们迟些发布在Newgrounds上，运用先前Kongregate的经验。明白标示展示版本。加上评 论的连结。同样加上折扣券。 I also created some medals (achievements) for the game. Kongregate badges are all hand-crafted by Kong employees (mostly Greg McClanahan), but on Newgrounds you can create them yourself and submit them to Newgrounds chief Tom Fulp for approval. I created some for the usual stuff like beating levels and gaining party members, as well as a set of easy ones just for visiting the various option menus. 我还加上一些成就。Kongregate的成就大部分是他们成员Greg McClanahan帮我们弄的。 在Newgrounds上可以自己创造并上传审核。我做的只是打破关，增加队伍成员，以及按下 我们的各种按钮。 My hope was that players would spend the first five minutes of the game exploring the options menus to rack up some quick medals and discover all the options and customization in the game. Hopefully players likely to complain about "too much reading" would quickly see they can turn tutorials and dialogue off, and those demanding "more hotkeys" would discover that not only does the game have hotkeys, but they are all customizable. The entire game can be played with nothing but the keyboard should they so desire. 我希望玩家在前五分钟就可以因为按下一些选项按钮而得到成就，让游戏的品质可以客制 化。希望那些回应"太多说明"的玩家可以发现可以把教学关掉的选项；回应"需要热键"的 玩家可以找到我们不只有热键，还能自由修改，整个游戏可以只透过键盘就进行。 Newgrounds’ feedback system is less noisy than Kong’s, and oriented towards reviews rather than comments, so the reviews are dominated by players who have bought the full game. Furthermore, Kongregate’s system only allows a user to vote once, but Newgrounds lets users vote every day, giving higher voting power to established users. Newgrounds的回应系统比Kongregate乾净，会导到评论页面而不是回应页面，所以那些回 应都来自於已经购买的玩家。更甚者，Kongregate的分数系统只能投一次，Newgrounds让 玩家每天都投票，让投票的动作建立死忠玩家。 The upshot is that on Kong, the score depends more on the first impressions of a large audience, trends downwards over time, and is more vulnerable to one star hate-reviews. On Newgrounds a devoted fanbase of site regulars can gradually raise the score and easily offset drive-by down-ratings. Shortly after launching, our score on both sites was around 4.11. It’s plateaued on Kong, but it’s up to an unbelievable 4.40 on Newgrounds! Kongregate的分数多半来自玩家的第一印象，很容易往下走，而且不吝惜给一颗星。 Newgrounds则是像粉丝基地可以持续攀升。很短的时间内前者的分数就到达4.11，後者更 达到不可思议的4.44。 Shortly after I submitted my medals to Tom Fulp for approval, he responded to my message with great news. Not only had he approved the medals, he’d also placed the game on the front page! Unfortunately, Newgrounds went down for their long-delayed redesign on February 6, and when it came back up, we were just below the threshold for front page status. 当我们上传成就到Newgrounds给Tom Fulp审核不久，他就通知我好消息，不只审核通过， 他还把游戏放到首页。不幸地，Newgrounds维修改版面延迟到2月6日，我们的位置刚好落 在首页外面。 Even so, coupons suggest we’ve made a lot of sales from Newgrounds — even more than from Rock, Paper, Shotgun, making them our second-largest source of sales. Together, Newgrounds and Kongregate probably represent about 80 to 90 percent of our total revenue. This is a completely unexpected outcome; we thought a demo up-sell model was a long shot for Flash portals, and anticipated only modest sales. 折扣券显示我们有很多销售数字来自Newgrounds，比Rock, Paper, Shotgun还多，名列销 售来源第二名。Newgrounds与Kongregate可能包办我们8成到9成的获益，这是未预期的结 果，我们本以为这方法在Flash入口不会管用，而且只会贡献小部份销售， People playing games on free Flash portals don’t like spending money, and they also don’t like going to another website to do so. Given we were asking them to do both, our success took me by surprise. We estimate that our demo-to-sales conversion rate is somewhere between 1 to 5 percent. Moving to kreds on Kongregate seems to have helped — on-site currencies let players buy the game without going to another website or pulling out their credit cards. 在这些Flash入口的玩家只玩免费游戏，而且也不喜欢跑到其他网页花钱。很惊讶地我们 在这两个决策上影响他们。我们估计展示版转付费的比例大约在百分之一到五。使用 kreds币很有帮助.入口的货币让玩家不用再按一次信用卡。 Since we knew that many smaller flash portals "steal" game files from Kongregate and Newgrounds, we wanted the Kongregate version to work even on other sites. This is how Flash games spread virally. To be clear: we want portals to do this so that our demo gets more plays, and hopefully, more sales. The Kongregate version had special code that detected when it was running on a site other than kongregate.com, which would make it revert to the normal format, directing players to visit our website to buy the game. 我们知道很多Flash入口网站都偷Kongregate与Newgrounds的游戏，我们并不在意，这是 Flash高市占率的原因。我们甚至希望那些入口这样作散布我们的展示版本。希望能带来 更多销售数字。Kongregate版的折扣券可以侦测程式不是跑在他们的平台上，折扣券就会 失效。并直接导引到我们网站。 Final Thoughts So, that’s everything we’ve done, and our sales numbers so far. I’m not prepared to draw broad conclusions as to what worked and what didn’t in terms of driving sales. It’s still a bit too early in the process for that. But I will say that I think there are some pretty clear spikes correlated with reviews and portal promotions. Our steady daily sales seem like they’re coming from Kongregate, Newgrounds, and small flash portals. 这就是我们做的一切，以及目前的销售数字。画下如何冲刺销售数字的结论还言之过早。 不过我可以说有些小技巧可以透过评论与入口来帮忙。 Our last and most important strategy has been to focus on customer service. Anthony, James, and I all try to keep the backlog from building up. We do our best to stay abreast of glitches and compatibility problems, and to surmount the limitations of our less-than-perfect storefront. So far customer feedback has been positive. 我们的最後且最重要的策略就是作客户服务。我与Anthony，James持续运用资源，并监控 平台通用性的问题，尽量克服网页很简陋的限制。至少目前反应都很正面。 We hope to move on to other stores like Desura and Impulse, etc, soon, but first we want to iron out the major bugs, solve compatibility glitches, and finish the bonus version so we can put our best foot forward on those platforms. 我们希望再拓展到其他游戏商店。但在拓展到其他平台前，目前我们要解决一些主要的 bug跟平台通用性，完成奖金的版本。 I hope all this information helps someone. 希望这些资讯对其他人有帮助。 -- "May the Balance be with U"(愿平衡与你同在) 视窗介面游戏设计教学，讨论，分享。欢迎来信。 视窗程式设计（Windows CLR Form）游戏架构设计（Game Application Framework） 游戏工具设计（Game App. Tool Design ） 电脑图学架构及研究（Computer Graphics） --

※ 发信站: 批踢踢实业坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 114.44.114.135 ※ 编辑: NDark 来自: 114.44.114.135 (04/19 21:47) ※ 编辑: NDark 来自: 114.44.114.135 (04/19 21:50)